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Stanford, Calif. - No. 6 Stanford baseball gave the capacity crowd a thriller on Friday night, but their comeback in the ninth inning fell short when Charlie Cutler drove in the winning run with an RBI single in the 10th inning. Brent Milleville hit his sixth home run of the season for the Cardinal and Randy Molina finished 2-4 on the evening with an RBI.

The game throughout was a strong pitchers duel between California ace Tyson Ross (7-2, 4.29 ERA) and Cardinal junior Austin Yount (3-2, 2.11 ERA) kept both teams off the base paths for most of the game.

The Golden Bears score a run in the first inning when Cutler was hit by a pitch and made it all the way to third base on a double by David Cooper. Second baseman Josh Satin singled home California's first run of the evening and the Bears led 1-0 early.

That lead lasted until the fourth inning when Milleville's shot to center field cleared the wall and after four complete the game was all knotted up at one apiece. The Cardinal home run was quickly countered though by California ninth place hitter Michael Brady, when he hit a home run of his own over the centerfield wall an the Bears recaptured the lead at 2-1.

Great pitching and defense continued to be on display all night at Klein Field as Joey August had two great grabs in left and Sean Ratliff ran down two balls of his own in centerfield. California added another run in the eighth inning when designated hitter Rich Gorman followed Brady's walk with a single to put runners at first and second. Yount threw a wild pitch right after and California had two runners in scoring position with only one out. Cutler followed with another base hit that scored a run and extended the California lead to 3-1.

Stanford had one last chance in the ninth inning and they certainly made the most of it. Colin Walsh leadoff with a double down the left field line and August walked right after to give the Stanford two base runners with none out. Junior catcher Jason Castro pushed both runners up another base when he grounded out to first base. Milleville hit a sacrifice fly to center to cut the lead to 3-2, and Molina represented the last chance for Stanford with two outs. Molina took advantage and ripped a single up the middle and the game was tied at three all and that hit chased Golden Bear Tyson Ross in the process.

The game went to extra innings where Brady walked after a Jeff Kobernus ground off leadoff the inning. Brady stole second base and came around to score of Cutler's second hit of the evening to the right side. The Bears led 4-3 and the Cardinal once again had one last shot in the tenth inning.

It started off strong when Brendan Domaracki led off the inning with a single. He was replaced at first by Wande Olabisi, and a bizarre play ensued with the next hitter. Zach Jones was called out on strikes and it appeared that Olabisi clearly got in before the throw on a steal attempt at second base. Jones though was called for interference and both players were called out on the play and Olabisi was pulled off second base. The final score ended up being 4-3, in a highly contested opening game Friday night in Stanford, Calif.

Golden Bear closer Matt Gorgen picked up the win and improved to 2-1 on the season and Danny Sandbrink picked up the loss and fell to 0-1.

Both teams will return to Klein Field tomorrow afternoon when they resume the series at 1:00 p.m.